Tim Lambert (deltoidblog AT gmail.com) is a computer scientist at the University of New South Wales.
Steve D. Fischer writes:
more threatening than a govt official sitting across a desk from you?
(1) not sitting across a desk
Irrelevant. The key is that they can look you in the eye and read your body language.
Yet one more time: The NCVS used to be face to face but now most interviews are conducted by phone (except for interviews of people without phones, of course).
(2) 97% of the people cooperate with the census NCS survey
Co-operate does not mean tell truth. It simply means they agree to answer the questions.
The sensible thing to do if you want to conceal something from the NCVS is not to answer ANY of the questions. Some may not think of this, by a 97% response rate is inconsistent with a wide degree of mistrust of the NCVS.
(3) NCS gives legal guarantee
Which they may have every intent of honoring, but that won't prevent someone from hacking into their database, or bribing someone in the hierarchy into providing names, addresses, etc. Besides, the degree to which one believes the guarantee is dependent upon the trust of any particular individual.
And neither can Kleck prevent someone from hacking into his database, or finding out phone number, name and address.
I'm surprised that people are still maintaining that Kleck's survey was anonymous and that DG users were called back to verify that they had used a gun. If it was anonymous how could they call them back?
